'Police Cannot Be Allowed To Tutor Prosecution Witness': Supreme Court Asks TN DGP To Take Action Against Erring Police Officers

While rebuking Tamil Nadu Police for tutoring the witnesses to depose against the accused, the Supreme Court on Friday (April 05) directed the Tamil Nadu's Director General of Police to make an enquiry into the conduct of the police officials of tutoring witnesses at the concerned Police Station and to take action against the erring police officials in accordance with law.

“Thus, the scenario which emerges is that precisely a day before the evidence of PW-1 to PW-5 was recorded before the Trial Court, they were called to the Police Station and were taught to depose in a particular manner. One can reasonably imagine the effect of “teaching” the witnesses inside a Police Station. This is a blatant act by the police to tutor the material prosecution witnesses. All of them were interested witnesses. Their evidence will have to be discarded as there is a distinct possibility that the said witnesses were tutored by the police on the earlier day. This kind of interference by the Police with the judicial process, to say the least, is shocking. This amounts to gross misuse of power by the Police machinery. The Police cannot be allowed to tutor the prosecution witness.”, the Bench Comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mithal said.

The Judgment authored by Justice Abhay S Oka stated that the police cannot be allowed to tutor the witnesses to depose in a certain manner. Further, the court was surprised to note that this crucial aspect was overlooked by the trial court as well as the High Court.

“We are surprised that both the Courts overlooked this critical aspect. It is pertinent to note that the defence of the accused, as can be seen from the line of cross-examination, was that they were not present at the place of the incident at the time of the incident. PW-2 admitted that accused no.1 was working in another village called Tirrupur. Although available, independent witnesses were not examined by the Prosecution. Therefore, adverse inference must be drawn against the prosecution. Hence, there is a serious doubt created about the genuineness of the prosecution case.”, the court observed.

Based on the above premise, the court reversed the conviction of the appellants under Section 302 r/w Section 34 IPC to acquittal by giving benefit of doubt to the appellant/accused.

Accordingly, the appeal was allowed.

Counsels For Appellant(s) Mr. G.Sivabala Murugan,Adv. Mr. Mailysamy,Adv. Mr. Selvaraj Mahendran,Adv. Mr. C.Adhikesavan,Adv. Mr. P.V.Hari Krishnan,Adv. Mr. P. Soma Sundaram, AOR Mr. R Nedumaran, Adv. Mr. B Ragunath, Adv. Mrs. N.C Kavitha, Adv. Mr. Vijay Kumar, AOR

Counsels For Respondent(s) Dr. Joseph Aristotle S., AOR Ms. Shubhi Bhardwaj, Adv. Ms. Vaidehi Rastogi, Adv.

Case Title: Manikandan versus State by the Inspector of Police

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 281

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